Today’s episode is gonna be the first of a series of episodes that are a little different. I’ll be sharing the recordings of workshops the Organizing & Outreach team at ARC facilitated for our Change your mind, Change the World campaign centered around different types of stigma. In this episode I’ll be sharing the first talk of the series titled Pause!: Breaking the Cycle: Fear, Stigma, and Criminalization in Reproductive Justice facilitated by my colleague Britni and I. This talk was part of a broader conversation around how we name and interrupt the cycles of harm that keep so many of us—especially Black folks, queer, poor, immigrants, disabled folks—trapped in systems of fear and punishment. Whether it’s the criminalization of abortion, parenting while poor, or simply trying to exist outside of rigid binaries, we see how stigma is weaponized, via culture and how this gives the state manufactured permission to show up violently through systems like policing,incarceration, and restrictive laws & medical care.
In this talk, we dig into the ways stigma doesn't just shape policy—it shapes culture. It shapes how we treat each other. And we also talk about what it might look like to break that cycle—to name what’s happening, reclaim our autonomy, and build radically honest collective strategies rooted in love, care, and liberation. As always, thanks for being here and I hope this episode encourages you to think more intentionally about your relationship to stigma.